10 Best Movie Characters Of 2021 (So Far)
7. Cruella De Vil - Cruella
Cruella may have been a wildly "unnecessary" movie and not all of its storytelling decisions went down smoothly, but it's incredibly difficult to argue with the persuasiveness of Emma Stone's central performance.
She digs down deep and creates a full-bodied protagonist who, while a contentious reinvention of the Cruella de Vil we all know from 101 Dalmatians, is one of the more fascinatingly off-kilter Disney anti-heroes in recent memory.
Yes, the film makes a concerted effort to downplay Cruella's prior villainy and present her in more sympathetic terms, but thanks to Stone's portrayal she's an appealingly sassy, tortured woman who truly comes into her own by film's end.
As easy as it would've been for this punk-rock version of Cruella to basically be Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn in a different shade of makeup, Stone ensures she stands on her own two feet as a twisted, fiendish genius.